ELECTION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does election mean? 

• ELECTION (noun)
  The noun ELECTION has 4 senses:

1. a vote to select the winner of a position or political office

2. the act of selecting someone or something; the exercise of deliberate choice

3. the status or fact of being elected

4. the predestination of some individuals as objects of divine mercy (especially as conceived by Calvinists)

  Familiarity information: ELECTION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ELECTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A vote to select the winner of a position or political office

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

the results of the election will be announced tonight

Hypernyms ("election" is a kind of...):

vote (the opinion of a group as determined by voting)

Domain member category:

poll (the counting of votes (as in an election))

plurality; relative majority ((in an election with more than 2 options) the number of votes for the candidate or party receiving the greatest number (but less that half of the votes))

absolute majority; majority ((elections) more than half of the votes)

public servant (someone who holds a government position (either by election or appointment))

contester (someone who contests an outcome (of a race or an election etc.))

contestee (a winner (of a race or an election etc.) whose victory is contested)

absentee ballot ((election) a ballot that is cast while absent (usually mailed in prior to election day))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "election"):

reelection (election again)

general election (a national or state election; candidates are chosen in all constituencies)

primary; primary election (a preliminary election where delegates or nominees are chosen)

by-election; bye-election (a special election between regular elections)

runoff (a final election to resolve an earlier election that did not produce a winner)

Derivation:

elect (select by a vote for an office or membership)

electoral (of or relating to elections)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The act of selecting someone or something; the exercise of deliberate choice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

her election of medicine as a profession

Hypernyms ("election" is a kind of...):

choice; option; pick; selection (the act of choosing or selecting)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "election"):

co-optation; co-option (the selection of a new member (usually by a vote of the existing membership))

cumulative vote (an election in which each person has as many votes as there are positions to be filled and they can all be cast for one candidate or can be distributed in any manner)

Derivation:

electoral (of or relating to elections)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The status or fact of being elected

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

they celebrated his election

Hypernyms ("election" is a kind of...):

position; status (the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society)

Sense 4

Meaning:

The predestination of some individuals as objects of divine mercy (especially as conceived by Calvinists)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("election" is a kind of...):

foreordination; predestination; predetermination; preordination ((theology) being determined in advance; especially the doctrine (usually associated with Calvin) that God has foreordained every event throughout eternity (including the final salvation of mankind))

 Context examples 

Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable privilege of her election.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Neither could I be wholly unmoved, after comparing the living with the dead, when I considered how all these pure native virtues were prostituted for a piece of money by their grand-children; who, in selling their votes and managing at elections, have acquired every vice and corruption that can possibly be learned in a court.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They appreciated or sneered at the morning editorials, jumped from labor conditions in New Zealand to Henry James and Brander Matthews, passed on to the German designs in the Far East and the economic aspect of the Yellow Peril, wrangled over the German elections and Bebel's last speech, and settled down to local politics, the latest plans and scandals in the union labor party administration, and the wires that were pulled to bring about the Coast Seamen's strike.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

When John came down at last, expecting to find a pensive or reproachful wife, he was agreeably surprised to find Meg placidly trimming a bonnet, and to be greeted with the request to read something about the election, if he was not too tired.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

You cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay now, for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing against the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I never saw before, it is quite charming!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)